The Urban League's United Front for Equity in Public Education

By Michael Tomlin-Crutchfield

Since its genesis, education reform policies have been created without considering the needs and voices of Black communities. 

To change how schools and school leaders engage with our families and kids, the Urban League movement has built coalitions of invested partners to advance educational equity in our communities. Our convening, Building Public Will for Education Equity, unpacked the work of our affiliate movement and emphasized the importance of engaging communities, private and public institutions, and elected leaders to recognize how the inequities in our education impact society on a broader level.

"Until everyone sees the issues of education and the inequities in education as their responsibility, it will continue to exist in a silo," said Adenike Huggins, Senior Director of Education Policy and Advocacy National Urban League. "What we're trying to accomplish in this work is outline why it shouldn't exist in a silo because the impact of these issues are greater and the reach is further than our classrooms."

 

Empowering Caregivers

The Urban League of Greater Southwestern Ohio focused on one of the least engaged and most influential voices in the equity conversation, caregivers. Under the leadership of Jasmine Coaston, the Vice President of Government and Community Relations, the affiliate held 200 one-on-one conversations with caregivers to paint a picture of the current state of engagement from the school district. The affiliate also developed a toolkit that advocated for positive changes in school culture to improve the educational outcomes of our kids.

"Many of us have been historically excluded from politics, specifically in our schools," said Coaston. "We created an environment that provided a safe space for caregivers who felt excluded to have a say in the culture of their child's schools. Our top caregiver concerns were creating schools free of bias, emphasizing culturally responsive teaching, and better parent engagement."

To ensure that caregivers were seen, valued, and heard, the Black Caregiver Network was formed. While navigating a global pandemic, the network was able to develop a spectrum of engagement that evaluated how well the Cincinnati Public School system included the voices of caregivers when making policies that impact our children.

The network submitted a set of recommendations that expanded the parent-teacher conference from a set time and date to an all-day engagement that featured virtual options to accommodate all caregivers. The network also asked the district to engage families in the principal selection process to ensure that school leaders reflected the community's needs.

Learn How the ULGSO Empowered Caregivers

The Organizing Model

Leveraging Data to Build Connections

The Urban League of Louisiana also focused on engaging families by hosting a series of listening sessions in Lafayette, New Orleans, and Baton Rouge. The sessions, which took place in-person and virtually, use Louisiana department of education data to develop a series of reports for superintendents to advance equity in their districts.

"Before we went to the Louisiana Board of Education with a set of recommendations, we went into the communities in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Shreveport, and New Orleans to get a sense of their local culture and what they wanted to see a change in their schools," said Todd Baptiste.

Building Will in Louisiana with Data

"In Baton Rouge, we published an advancing equity report and developed a scorecard in concert with the superintendent to track the progress of African-American student reading scores, ACT scores, and matriculation."

Baptiste noted that building public will with leaders in Lafayette came with unique challenges.

"We expect to publish our second educational equity report (in Lafayette), but we have had some challenges," said Baptiste. "We have a school superintendent who did not want to engage with us because she did not believe educational equity was an issue in the district. To provide more data for our efforts, we've secured a $250,000 grant from the Kresge Foundation to engage more parents in the development of our reports."

Becoming a Trusted Voice

The Urban League of Greater Cleveland built a coalition of leaders from across the state, including the state superintendent of education, the superintendent of Cleveland Public Schools, and the mayor of Elyria, OH, Frank Whitfield, to advocate for equity in key areas affecting kids in their community.

Getting a Seat at the Table

"Our three focus areas were the third-grade reading guarantee, high school graduation, and college and career stands, which aligns with our Project Ready work, and expanding our of school opportunities," said Marsha Mockabee, CEO of the Urban League of Greater Cleveland. "As the second phase of our work under our Wallace Foundation grant, we were nudged by our coalition to come up with a creative solution to empower families to become advocates in our fight for equity. We partnered with Ohio State University to develop the Center for Family and Community Engagement, which now sits on our website. In phase three of our work, we received funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to become a leader in the social justice space in education. We built upon our EEP work and expanded our positioning in the community."

Since launching their educational equity strategic plan in 2016, before the EEP work, Wallace and Hewlett work, the affiliate set its sights on becoming the preeminent empowerment organization for the empowerment of African Americans by becoming a thought leader, convener, and facility in the state of Ohio.

"When I took over the Urban League as CEO, I couldn't get a call from city leaders or funders to support our work," said Mockabee. "Today, everyone is calling the Urban League to be at tables that we were never at before. Individuals from the state of Ohio have asked us to oversee the STEM career work in the Cleveland area and ensure that the instruction meets the needs of all students. We received a summer bridge grant to close the learning gap for students who fell behind during the pandemic. And, we have been selected to lead the education pillar of the state's work to unpack racism as a public health crisis."

Building Will in the Face of Adversity

Learn How the Urban League of Nebraska is Working Across the Aisle to Advance Equity

With the midterm elections just two weeks after our convening, Wayne Brown, CEO of the Urban League of Nebraska, shed light on how his affiliate is building public will in the face of political challenges.

"In a state that has been pretty red politically, the pendulum swung in our direction in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. We had great support at the state and public school levels in our city," said Brown. "But after our recent election, the already red state has gone bright red. There are a number of new school board members that are anti-CRT, against equity training, and LGBTQIA+ training, so we anticipate that the backlash to our work is coming. We had a champion at the state school board level that was pushed out, and now this new group of political leaders will be hiring the new school superintendent for the state."

As a response, Brown and the affiliate leveraged existing relationships across the state to meet with the newly elected governor to outline their goals and how they can continue to grow their work.

"Living in Nebraska, however, we're used to working in a red environment. We're already met with the governor before he was elected to talk through the next few years of our work. The bright spot is that we had some American Rescue Plans dollars allocated to us, thanks to two African American state senators, that will allocate $300 million for the North Omaha Black community. Between that investment and a potential match from a donor, we gained some leverage in our conversations with the new governor and have built a committee to talk through how those dollars are spent," said Brown. "We are also planning to meet with other coalition members, including a set of diverse school leaders from across the state, in December to discuss how to move forward. We have a long way to go, but there is a bright spot."

As we close out this phase of the work and continue to build coalitions for equity in education, we want to encourage you to explore how you can build public will in your community to secure our children's future and improve their educational outcomes. Follow @naturbanleague on social to learn more about our work and the work of the Urban League movement